“Right you are,” Peter agreed. “But perhaps there's somewhere we can leave a message.”
Jon smiled. “I know ? right under their noses, where they'll never see it. We can use the Asperger's syndrome Web site.”
Marty nodded enthusiastically. “That's great, Jon. Perfect.”
They continued to discuss the site's Web ring and what kind of coded messages to leave until Peter suddenly shouted: “Hold fast! Bogies at ten o'clock!”
The RV gave a wild lurch to the right, swaying so far over for a second it rode on two wheels. A volley of shots exploded from the forest. Glass flew and metal ripped at the back of the RV. Marty cried out.
“Mart?” Jon looked back.
Marty sat huddled on the floor of the careening RV, clutching his left leg and trying not to be flung from side to side like a sack of flour. A bloody sack of flour. Jon could see a spreading pool of red on Marty's trouser leg, but Marty grinned feebly and said in a shaky voice, “I'm all right, Jon.”
“Get a towel,” Jon called back, “fold it and press it hard against the wound. If the bleeding doesn't stop soon, yell out.”
He needed to stay in the cab where he could use Peter's Enfield if any of the attackers cut them off.
Peter was too busy to use a weapon as he turned the wheel with a vise grip, his pale eyes cool. The unwieldy vehicle bounced off the road through the trees and brush, miraculously hitting nothing as Peter guided it with the precision of an astronaut docking at a space station. Twice he plunged the massive vehicle through streams, kicking up sheets of water and tilting dangerously on rocks hidden beneath the surfaces.
On the road, two men ran with rifles trying to get a clear shot at the RV, but the bone-jarring, unpredictable lurches and bounces of the vehicle frustrated them. They dodged branches and leaped over rocks. Behind them, a gray SUV battled to turn on the narrow road so it could join the pursuit.
As the runners fell farther behind, Jon spotted a deep ravine looming straight ahead. “Peter! Careful!”
“Got it!” Peter slammed the brakes and pivoted in a half J-turn. The top-heavy vehicle threatened to flip over as it skidded sideways, sideswiped two giant boulders, and finally came to a shuddering stop barely feet from the chasm.
On the road, the runners were far back but closing in again. In the distance, the SUV had almost succeeded in turning.
Tension in the RV was thick. Jon stared down at the deep ravine and wiped sweat from his face.
“Here we go.” Peter gunned the engine, and the big vehicle leaped ahead parallel to the ravine and straight toward the road.
Jon watched the two pursuing attackers, who were trying to shortcut the road by sprinting among the trees. “They're getting close!”
Peter gave the running men a quick glance. The ravine made a sudden sharp turn away, and he angled the RV out of the trees and onto the road once more. With a relieved grin, he jerked the clumsy vehicle around and roared away down the dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust.
A final fusillade rang out, and bullets slashed through the trees around the fleeing vehicle. Jon forced himself to take a long breath and relax his hands on his weapon. He checked the side-view mirror: The two men had been joined by a third, and they stood angry and frustrated, their weapons dangling at their sides, in the center of the dusty road.
Jon recognized the short, burly man who had joined the first two.
“It's them,” he said angrily. “The people who've been trying to kill me.” He looked at Peter. “There'll be more of them somewhere.”
“Of course.” Peter studied the rough road as the vehicle continued to shake and bounce. “Evasive strategy, I should say. Knowledge of the terrain. Trust the enemy to overrate the element of surprise.”
Jon climbed back to Marty, hanging on to anything he could hold. But this time Marty was right ? the flesh wound in his left leg was superficial. Jon applied antibiotic and a bandage. One of the RV's windows had been shot out and the outer shell ripped with bullet holes in three places, but nothing had penetrated, and nothing important was damaged, especially not the computer that was part of Peter's standard equipment.
He rejoined Peter up front, and five minutes later heard the sound of traffic.
“What do you think?” He scrutinized the dirt road ahead as it wound down among the trees. “Will they be waiting where we join the highway?”
“Or sooner. Let's disappoint them.” Peter smiled his almost dreamy smile.
Ahead was a track that led off from the road to the left. Even narrower than the road they traveled, even more deeply rutted, it was only inches wider than the RV. But it was a road, not a trail.
Peter explained, “Fire road. Forest's full of them. Unmarked on any maps but the forestry service's and the fire district's.”
“We're taking it?” Jon asked.
“The scenic route.” With a short smile, Peter swung the RV onto it.
Pine branches brushed and scraped against the RV's metal sides. The noise was endless and unnerving, like fingers on a chalkboard. Fifteen minutes later, just as Jon was beginning to think he was going to lose his mind, he saw the end of the road.
“This it?” he asked Peter hopefully.
“What? Stop this lovely jaunt?” Peter turned the vehicle onto another fire road. “We're going downhill now, notice? Won't be long,” he said cheerfully. “Buck up, lad.”
This fire road was an equally tight squeeze. Overhanging branches continued to scratch the sides as Peter pressed the RV onward. Jon closed his eyes and sighed, trying to keep his skin from crawling. At least Marty was not complaining from the back. But then, Marty was on his meds. Thank God for at least that.
When they finally reached the highway, Jon sat up alertly. Peter paused the RV among the trees at the blacktop's edge. The horrible scratching and groaning stopped, and only the sound of the engine and the traffic marred the quiet beauty of the forest.
Jon peered around. “Any sign of them?” Traffic on the wide two-lane road in front of them was heavier than he'd expected. “This isn't I20.”
“U.S. 395. The big one on this side. Should do. See anyone lurking?”
Jon surveyed both directions. “No one.”
“Good. Neither do I. Which way?”
“Which way gets us to San Francisco faster?”
“To the right, and back on I20 through Yosemite.”
“To the right then, and I20.”
Peter's pale eyes twinkled. “Cheeky of you.”
“Going back the way we came should be the last thing they'd expect us to do, and all RVs look alike anyway.”
“Unless the ambushers read our plate.”
“Take the plates off.”
“Dammit, my boy. Should've thought of that.” Peter pulled a screwdriver and a set of Montana license plates from the glove compartment and jumped out.
Jon grabbed his Beretta and followed. He stood watch as Peter lifted off the old one and screwed on a license from Montana. In the tranquil forest, birds sang and insects buzzed.
Minutes later, both men returned inside.
Marty was sitting at the computer. He looked up. “Everything okay?”
“Absolutely,” Jon reassured him.
Peter put the RV into gear and said enthusiastically, “Let's bell the cat.”
He rolled the lumbering vehicle onto the highway heading south. When the I20 intersection appeared, he turned onto it, and they climbed back uphill. A quarter of a mile later they passed two SUVs parked along the dense forest, one on each side of the dirt road that led from the back of Peter's property.
At one of the SUVs, a tall, pockmarked man with hooded dark eyes and wearing a black suit spoke into a walkie-talkie. He seemed agitated, and he stared up the mountainside in frustration. He hardly glanced at the battered RV with the Montana plates as it climbed up the highway toward Yosemite.
“Arab,” Peter said. “Looks dangerous.”
